Black sheep

“ It is easy enough to separate the black sheep - the jet black animals, who no more than a blackamoor may be scrubbed white - and the misguided sheep who has strayed from the honest flock, perhaps only this once in all his life, and would give his ears to get back again. ”

“ It seems incredible that blackbirds should belong to the same family as sweet-voiced meadowlarks, gay bobolinks, and musical orioles. They are literally the “black sheep” of the family, with a plumage in keeping with their dark deeds, and a sinister expression that arouses suspicion and wins them few friends. Their habit of destroying birds’ eggs and young birds makes them a terror to their neighbors. ”

“ Some of the sheep looked at the ram and began to titter, for he was old and thin, and looked very comical indeed without any wool. And this made him so angry that he went off by himself and began eating grass, and would not speak to the others at all.
"I don't know why sheep should feel badly about having their fleeces cut," remarked the Black Sheep, thoughtfully, "for the farmer is very kind to us, and so is his dame, and I am glad my wool serves to keep them warm in the winter. For before the snow comes our wool will grow out again, and we shall not be any the worse for our loss." ”

“ A black nose gives a sheep the touch of character which the species too often lacks: a hardy air of almost goatlike effrontery, yet without the cold-eyed irony of the goat, which forbids the lover of wickedness the sympathy which the black-nosed sheep inspires. ”

“ The white sheep did not stop to think. He gave a great jump, and leaped in too. Down, down, down he fell, on to a heap of great sharp stones. Both he and the black sheep were much hurt. They could not get out, and were forced to lie there in great pain. By and by some men came by, and saw the sheep in the pit. The men got them out, and took them back to the field, and sent for some one to see what could be done for them.
The horse and the cow, in great grief, came and stood by the side of the white sheep as he lay on the grass. ”

“ Black sheep, for instance, have been practically obliterated by cutting out generation after generation all animals that show this color phase, until in carefully maintained flocks a black individual only appears as a rare sport. ”

“ Another is of opinion that, by breeding the lambs too black, the wool is injured, and likewise apt to be tainted with black, and spotted, especially about the neck, and not saleable. A fourth breeds with legs and faces as black as it is possible; and he too is convinced that the healthiness is in proportion to blackness; whilst another says, that if the South Down sheep were suffered to run in a wild state, they would in a very few years become absolutely black. ”

“ Once we shook our heads and said, "Well, they say there's one black sheep in every family." Now we are beginning to see that the black sheep may be made by the gratification of every physical desire and every mental whim and the neglect of the spirit. ”

“ The black sheep gave up the white lambling into the care of a legitimate shepherd, who carried it off to a correct and appropriate fold. Then life was empty indeed, for, strange though it may seem, even black sheep have feelings—ridiculously out of place they are too. ”

“ As Lady Elizabeth had said to her daughter, that question of admitting black sheep into society, or of refusing them admittance, is very difficult. In the first place, whose eyes are good enough to know whether in truth a sheep be black or not? ”

“ Black Sheep did not reply to this, for she thought the old ram very ill-tempered and selfish, and believed he was doing wrong not to grow more wool.
Finally the time came to shear the sheep again, and the farmer and his man came into the pasture to look at them, and were surprised to see what a fine, big fleece the Black Sheep had grown.
"There will be three bagsful at the least," said the master, "and I will keep my promise and give one to the little boy in the lane. But, my goodness! how scraggly and poor the old ram looks. There is scarcely any wool on him at all. ”

“ Andrew felt, as he crossed the cabin to his supporter's side, that he would die for this young elder who stood among his gray-haired seniors and gave the boy the only friendly smile in all that hostile company.
"He will bring us ill luck," he heard Granny Fletcher whisper to her neighbor. "Is not one black sheep enough for our voyage?" ”

“ And each day the little boy came to the bars and looked at the sheep and enquired how the wool was growing.
"I am getting along finely," the Black Sheep would answer, "for not one sheep in the pasture has so much wool as I have grown already." ”

“ In some races the wool is largely mingled with hair, and it is certain that the fineness and whiteness of the wool is the result of careful breeding for probably thousands of years. Many unimproved breeds are parti-coloured, as was evidently the case in the time of Jacob, where we read of "ring-straked, spotted and speckled." It is proverbial that there is a black sheep in every flock, and the constant recurrence of black, grey and reddish fleeces even in the most carefully bred flocks attests the fact that at one time they were much more common than now. ”

“ If you go over the list of the families in a parish, it is startling to find how few there are without one or more "black sheep." The human black sheep, in a good environment, is always physically imperfect, and never so black as the gossips paint him. ”

“ But it isn’t just one, Hugh. You see, sheep keep relatively the same position in the flock. Of course it might be just a single disaster—a coyote snatching her from the flanks—but ordinarily when one of the black sheep is gone, it means that a hundred or so others have gone with her. ”

“ To number a small proportion of "black sheep" is no shame for a flock amounting to myriads: such exceptional varieties must be bred for the use and delectation of those who prefer to right wrong and darkness to light. It is with these only that my remarks and retorts will deal and consequently I have assigned to them the post of honour. ”

“ The idea that "One black sheep infects the flock and poisons all the rest" has, we need scarcely say, no warrant in actual fact, though, morally, a black sheep is a dangerous addition to any flock, a something to be promptly eliminated from regiment, workshop, school, or whatever other body he may be infecting or exposing to risk of contagion. ”

“ The black sheep herds wherein it was found in British Columbia are absolutely isolated from domestic cattle and all their influences, and therefore it seems quite certain that the disease developed among the sheep spontaneously,—a remarkable episode, to say the least. Whether it will exterminate the black mountain sheep species, and in time spread to the white sheep of the northwest, is of course a matter of conjecture; but there is nothing in the world to prevent a calamity of that kind. ”

“ I am happy in being able to assure you that we are extremely respectable, crime and abject poverty being alike unknown among us. The conventional black sheep has appeared occasionally within our fold and has been prayed over or disowned according to the temper of his immediate victims. ”

“ Hence, as one of the squatters remarked, "we select the black members of the litter for raising, as they alone have a good chance of living." So that here we have artificial and natural selection working hand in hand. I may add that in the Tarentino the inhabitants keep black sheep alone, because the Hypericum crispum abounds there; and this plant does not injure black sheep, but kills the white ones in about a fortnight's time. ”

“ A black-nosed lamb affects one more like a bad little boy whose face has not been washed that morning, or for several mornings, than anything else in nature; and it would not be easy to say which was more suggestive of racial innocence mixed with personal depravity. I am not able to say whether a black nose in a sheep adds to the merit of its mutton or its fleece, but I am sure that it adds a piquant charm to its appearance, and I do not know why we have not that variety of sheep in America. ”

“ The very heath was of that stinted imperfect kind which has little or no flower, and affords the coarsest and meanest covering, which, as far as my experience enables me to judge, mother Earth is ever arrayed in. Living thing we saw none, except occasionally a few straggling sheep of a strange diversity of colours, as black, bluish, and orange. ”

“ So now at length, you, who have never looked upon him, see him, if you can, through my unscientific vision, as I rubbed his nose at Livingston, Montana: tall almost as a deer, shaped almost like a heavy black-tail deer, close haired, grayish, tailless, with unexpected ram’s horns curving round his furry ears and forward, with eyes dark yellow and grave, and with the look of a great gentleman in every line of him. The tame sheep is hopelessly bourgeois ”

“ He and several other relatives help me in the cultivation of our field. I raise a good many black sheep that pasture on our meadows, as well as half-wild hogs, as vicious as wolves and who never sleep under a roof.... ”

“ We're poor little lambs who've lost our way, Baa! Baa! Baa! We're little black sheep who've gone astray, Baa—aa—aa! Gentlemen-rankers out on the spree, Damned from here to Eternity, God ha' mercy on such as we, Baa! ”

“ However, an intelligent friend of mine near Chichester is determined to try the experiment; and has this autumn, at the hazard of being laughed at, introduced a parcel of black-faced hornless rams among his horned western ewes. The black-faced poll-sheep have the shortest legs and the finest wool. ”

“ The Black-faced or Heath Sheep are known by their large spiral horns, wild-looking eyes, black legs and faces, with short firm carcasses, covered by long coarse wool, which weighs from 3 lbs. to 4 lbs. As the form of this sheep has lately been much improved, by inducing a short and round carcass, they have acquired the name of short sheep, in contradistinction to the Cheviots, which are termed long sheep. When three years old, they fatten well, affording excellent highly-flavoured mutton, and weighing from 10 lbs. ”

“ A rank succulent pasture taints the flesh, or renders it insipid and unpleasant, while a dry aromatic herbage communicates a delightful flavour, and enables people versed in the pleasures of the table easily to discriminate between turnip-fed and grass-fed mutton; and again, between the latter, and that which has spent its existence on the hills. In Touchwood's Syllabus of Culinary Lectures, appended to the Cook and Housewive's Manual, by Mistress Dods, we are briefly informed, that "the black-faced, or short-sheep, are best for the table, though more depends on the pasture than the breed." ”

“ The remains of the ancient varieties of color, also, as noticed by Pliny, Solinus, and Columella, may still be discovered in the modern Merino. The plain and indeed the only reason that can be assigned for the union of black and gray faces with white bodies, in the same breed, is the frequent intermixture of black and white sheep, until the white prevails in the fleece, and the black is confined to the face and legs. It is still apt to break out occasionally in the individual, unless it is fixed and concentrated in the face and legs, by repeated crosses and a careful selection ”

“ The plain is formed by alluvial deposits, covered with rich pasture, and capable of supporting races of large sheep, as the Leicesters.
Sheep are the only kind of live-stock which ought to be kept in mountainous districts, especially when green crop cannot be cultivated. Sheep-farming must necessarily prevail in the Highlands, where there are few tracts suited for the pasturage of black cattle: The value of its adaptation to the natural circumstances of that district is proved by the rapid progress which it made, and the profits which resulted to the individuals with whom it originated. ”

“ The sandal, which is making its way down a side channel, with our sheep on board, is signalled to take this lady of the lake in, and land her on the opposite shore. These sheep of ours, though much tossed about, seem to enjoy the voyage and look about upon the raging scene with that indifference which comes of high breeding. They are black, but that was not to their prejudice in their Nubian home. They are comely animals in life, and in death are the best mutton in the East ”

“ The elk, the black-tail, and the mule-deer possess second and third stories in common, while the fourth is the exclusive territory of the sheep and the goat. But here is the difference; these latter (the sheep, certainly) descend to all the other stories if the season drives or the humor suits them; they go from roof to ground, while the other animals seldom, save when hunted, are to be met above or below their assigned levels. I have met a sheep on Wind River in July where the sage-brush was growing, and another on a wooded foot-hill just above Jackson’s Lake. ”

“ Surprise, I take it, is at the bottom of the most unaccountable acts of men. And if you wonder why our two Indians were surprised, I can only answer with a theory of mine that Indians who hunt on horseback have small knowledge of mountain sheep. Antelope, deer, white-tail and black, and even elk, can be, and are constantly thus hunted by the Indians; but when it comes to climbing where the horses cannot go, I suspect that his rider seldom goes either. ”

“ The South-Down sheep are polled, but it is probable that the original breed was horned, as it is not unusual to find among the male South-Down lambs some with small horns. The dusky, or at times, black hue of the head and legs fully establishes the original color of the sheep, and, perhaps of all sheep ”